Continuing To Downsize

This past week was a combination of taking steps to settle in here in Scottsdale and keeping up with estate sale work. Although the week marked the start of the fourth quarter of the year, which is the best for online selling, I have not been able to work with the jewelry just yet. I took a bite of my chicken salad sandwich at lunch on Monday and all of a sudden felt something weird. At first I thought it was a bone but it turned out the veneer on one of my front teeth fell off out of nowhere. When I was about 30 years old, I experienced a bicycle accident and really banged up my face and broke my two front teeth. I have had these veneers ever since. I never really loved the way they looked and was thinking about having them redone in a couple of years but suddenly the time has come! I am really glad it happened while in Scottsdale and not during our crunch time in Mount Prospect or when we were on the road. I got in to see the dentist the next day and he suggested that I replace the veneers with crowns, as well as replacing the caps on my canine teeth, which are on either side of the front teeth. My original canine teeth only grew to about half their proper size, one turned out pointed and the other rounded. When I was finished with braces at 15, the teeth were capped. They were only supposed to last ten years but here we are 43 years later! These caps angle in towards the center which I do not care for. It will be an investment but I am scheduled for a new smile on October 15. Right now I am in the midst of using trays to bleach my teeth, so the crowns can be made in a lighter color. I have completed two days and have three left to go this first round. If I would like my teeth to be a lighter shade, I can wait three days and then do three more. I have never had the opportunity to whiten my teeth before because the veneers and caps will not change color. The dentist tried to reapply my veneer temporarily but it fell off with the first meal I tried to eat. I am not looking too good right now while I do my homework and wait for my appointment. The situation is uncomfortable as well, I am having some difficulty speaking. I feel like I am lisping a bit.

Kuochun and I took some time to tour a couple of fitness centers as we were thinking about changing where we go from the senior center. The people who work at the senior center are great but some of the folks who patronize the fitness room are a challenge to deal with. I have found wonderful people to work with from the Scottsdale Living Facebook including Irma our house cleaner and Filemon our landscaper. There was a recent posting where a woman was asking for suggestions on a low-key gym that was not a meat market. Two of the suggestions given were Club SAR which is part of the City of Scottsdale and the Scottsdale Community College Fitness Wellness Center. We first visited Club SAR and the environment was not for us. The staff was nice but there was a huge boxing ring in the middle of the room and it was too much of a no-frills place. However SCC was great! We took a tour and the place is large, open, airy and clean and has a great selection of equipment including the NuStep which Kuochun really likes. They actually do not allow perfume-wearing which was an unexpected plus. We decided to sign up for a one-month pass and went for the first time on Saturday. We both really liked it a lot. On the second floor, there are circuit training machines set up which alternate upper body and lower body exercises. Back in the day, I used to go to Bally's in Deerfield after work and they had circuit training with a light system so you would know how much time to spend on each machine. I think Kuochun and I could work together to time the exercises. One of us could wipe down the machines to start and the other could wipe them down afterwards. Just adjacent to the fitness center are 8-10 beautiful pickleball courts which are totally free to use but first come first serve. Kuochun is very interested in taking up pickleball. I do not know how I will find the time but will figure it out. Right now it is still too warm in the sun to be out there mid-day, but one of the staff members at the fitness center said early that morning the courts were loaded. While we were signing up, a woman came over to me and said "you are going to love this gym so much, it's the best place!" I really appreciated that she took the time to give us her feedback. It is about a 2-3 minute longer drive each way than the senior center but it is going to be well worth it!

After the fitness center visits, Kuochun was ready for lunch so we went to Randy's Restaurant which is down the street from SCC. I kept hearing that there are no real diners in the Phoenix area but learned about Randy's from one of the Facebook groups. It is really old-school and has not been redecorated since the '80s. We did go for dinner one night and Kuochun loved his old fashioned fish dinner and I thought the burger I ordered was really tasty. He ordered liver and onions for lunch and ate every bit of it. I stayed simple and ordered a grilled cheese with bacon. The young staff is very kind to the elderly clientele and especially to a blind man who we were seated across from when we went for dinner. They even helped him to the restroom and to call for a ride home. It was definitely a family atmosphere and very nice to see in this day and age.

On Tuesday, the carpet cleaner came to take care of the carpeting on the second floor as well as the area rugs throughout the home. This was another Scottsdale Living suggestion and once again it was spot on. The cost was reasonable and the carpeting looks so much better than it did. Kuochun is really happy about it, his new term lately is "game-changer" and he used that term once again! I was really glad that the area rugs could be cleaned in place without having to spend a lot to have them taken away, cleaned and then brought back. My plan is to sell them as we have a couple of rugs that we brought back from Mount Prospect so I did not want to sink a lot of money into it.

Friday was drop-off day for the 4 U-Boxes which were packed up the day before our closing in Mount Prospect. I did my best to absorb everything but now every room as well as the garage is filled with extra furniture and small items that I need to go through. Unfortunately I was not able to sort everything ahead of time so I will need to separate out the items which will go to Prescott. There is too much furniture but once things settle down a bit with the estate sales my plan is to try and sell as much as I can. Due to waiting for permits, the Prescott project is now delayed several weeks but I have learned to have infinite patience with remodeling projects. I may see if most of the Prescott items can be relegated to the garage and if so, I may just keep them there to save money on storage costs. My original plan was to order a couple of U-Boxes and get everything out in a week but it does not look like I will have time to sort everything by then. I am going to see what the U-Boxes will cost as opposed to renting a U-Haul truck and driving it "up the hill" ourselves.

We are finding a rhythm with our Whatnot shows. I am trying to schedule 2-3 shows per week, depending upon the estate sales we have going on. Last week we held a sale at our Niles location. The team set up for the sale just beautifully! We even went outside and sold some items in the backyard. The attendance is not as high as when we had our vintage kitchen and holiday decor sales in Naperville but my goal is to keep consistent and more great opportunities will come about in the future. We also had a sale at the office, offering the rest of the holiday decor from Naperville and my vintage home decor and jewelry items from the showroom. I had created two shows for Thursday night, two hours apart. The first show was going well so we ended up staying on that one for an extra hour and postponing the jewelry show. I know jewelry is a very saturated category and it will take time to build up a following there. I think I will try a combined show next week, showing the rest of the decor and then jewelry after that.

One thing that should help our popularity was that our average ship time for Whatnot orders has greatly improved from 5 days to 1 day! Thank goodness this is evaluated on a 30-day rolling average and not our entire history, or a year like other platforms. I was happy to share this great news with our shipping team! So far (knock on wood) we have not had any issues or broken items lately so our seller performance metrics are continuing to improve. 

It was a heavy paperwork week this week with five estate sale packages (including mine!) so that rounded out the rest of the week. I will only have two estate sale packages to do next week but there will be three nights of Whatnot shows in a row for me to moderate. Our shows are in Wheaton, Glenview and at the office in that order. Highlights in Wheaton are the international home decor items and in Glenview, there is contemporary decor and eclectic jewelry.

I was going to launch the sale of my 30+ year vintage Christmas decor collection on Sunday evening but there was too much paperwork to do so I postponed it to next Sunday evening. I would also like to take some time to set everything up and take some photos and a video so everyone can see just how special this collection is. I collected glass Christmas ornaments for most of the '90s back in the days when Christmas decor did not go on sale until the day after Christmas. I used to buy two of each ornament I liked - one for the front and the other for the back of the tree. They are in small, medium and large sizes as I used to hang the smallest ones at the top and work my way down to the largest at the bottom. I also made a beautiful tree skirt and table runners in red plaid taffeta and attached wired bows to the end of each runner. I have a big moose which I purchased at a holiday market where Mother and I used to sell barrettes in the '80s. She was made by a nun and has a full outfit including a red cardigan sweater, white blouse, red plaid pleated skirt and patent leather Mary Janes. The proceeds went to charity and they sold out every year. I have a gorgeous 3-dimensional flower pillow made by a husband and wife team from Poland, we used to sell the pillows in our store and they custom made one for me in red and green for Christmas. I have a ceramic nativity set in bronze with glitter and I got a handmade creche for it which was made out of recycled Christmas trees. I bought fabulous green trees at Bloomingdale's in various sizes with fluffy branches which really compliment the look. I have mid-century modern style glitter ornaments and wooden ornaments in metallic silver and gold. I would say the color scheme is pretty well split between traditional colors of red, green, silver and gold and jewel-tone colors. I have a tremendous handmade tree skirt in purple fabric and the jewel-tone ornaments look so good with it. I also have about 8 vintage ceramic lighted Christmas trees in various sizes. I think the hardest items to part with will be the beautiful collection of sequined felt ornaments which I purchased from one of the first estate sales I ever conducted. There are birds, hearts, stars, Santas and so much more including 3-dimensional and flat pieces as well as door hangers and even a mobile. The homeowner made them in the 1960s and they are in wonderful condition. As much as I love these items, things are different now. It is just Kuochun and I and he did not grow up with these traditions. I have not had time to put up decorations for several years and prior to that I would be lucky to put them up half the time. They really should go to new homes for families to enjoy and not stay packed up and stored. I may break down and keep a few things that would be easy to set up as Prescott is considered to be Arizona's Christmas City.

Goals for next week are to sort everything out from Mount Prospect and start posting jewelry online again!